By María Ángela Holguín
In March this year, during Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ meeting with the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders and the senior representatives of the Guarantor Powers, the decision was made to move forward with certain measures designed to create an atmosphere of trust that would allow negotiations to move forward towards a solution of the Cyprus issue.
Among these was one that I personally consider to be of particular importance: the creation of the Technical Committee on Youth, that would allow young people to express and contribute their vision of the island’s future.
This committee is made up of 16 young people from each of the island’s communities, chosen by their leaders for their interest in participating actively in the successful co-existence of the two communities. All of them work and thus take on their personal time during evenings to engage as part of the work of the committee. Also, many of them live outside Nicosia and take on their personal time to come to the UN office to meet and engage. Their commitment needs to be emphasized.
Despite this short period of time, they have already met 20 times, including once in a larger meeting where more young people were present for the discussions, something the Committee itself has considered important for dialogue.
The leaders attended the first meeting of this committee, and I have personally engaged with it twice during my official visits to the island. In this context, I proposed a retreat of the committee so that we would have the opportunity to talk and share some time together without the restrictions of personal schedules, jobs and crossings among other things. The Swedish Government generously proposed to finance this encounter, and it took place last weekend in Amman, accompanied by the Folke Bernadotte Academy, a Swedish foundation which promotes conflict prevention and peacebuilding worldwide.
The vast majority of the members – 26 – enthusiastically agreed to join me in Amman for the retreat. We met Friday night and were together until Sunday evening. The discussions were cordial, friendly and positive. They were filled with good ideas from these young Cypriots who are committed to the island’s future.
No subject was off limits, and everyone could tell stories from their own lives and listen attentively to the lived experiences from different parts of the island.
With the aid of remarkable facilitators, these young people engaged in sessions designed to highlight what they each consider important to talk about and work on in order to advance their personal and professional lives.
The result was the identification of concrete subjects which will be worked on in depth through the Committee and which will provide leaders with a fresh, young view of the Cyprus problem.
As I have said before, the Cyprus issue is a people issue, about their hopes and future. These results that young people are working towards and which they bring to the table are tangible benefits for the two communities, so that the possibility of change is achieved based upon improving everyone’s lives. In order to be sustainable this change must be to everyone’s benefit, not just one of the communities.
In the past the UN has organized meetings like this, but this is the first one focused on young people, who are the island’s present and future, young professionals full of the dreams for their careers which their current situation does not allow them to properly develop. What they are searching for with this retreat is to participate actively in building a better future for Cyprus.
I listened to them carefully and watched them during all their presentations and discussions. I also had the opportunity to enjoy insightful conversations with them during our visit of Amman.
What I heard from them confirms what I have thought when talking to many people on the island on previous occasions: hope can be built and can flourish in Cyprus.
I am convinced that difficulties can be solved through dialogue, and I will continue promoting these types of meetings so that, face to face, we can think together about how to continue searching for a united Cyprus that can benefit everyone on the island and in the region.